Random freeze on XP Embedded device

[Roger Davies]

Hi,

We developed an application in C# (.NET 1.1) running on Win XP Pro SP2. The
application captures an image from a firewire camera and processes it using
third-party software that is in the form of a COM component. The application
is required to do this capture and processing loop about 200 times.

Recently, we created a configuration of Windows XP Embedded SP2 and tried
the application on that. The hardware is exactly the same, but after a random
number of cycles (anything from 1 to 120) Windows freezes – no mouse, no disk
activity, just a frozen screen. Sometimes, after a minute or so, Windows
resumes. Other times, the freeze seems to be permanent. There is nothing in
the event log to indicate why the freeze occurred. So far, when running the
same application on Windows XP Pro, this freeze has not been detected.

Thinking that the problem could be a missing component, I re-created the XP
Embedded image based on an XP Pro Emulation macro
(http://www.xpefiles.com/viewtopic.php?p=776&) and included all hardware
devices found by TAP.exe. I’ve also updated all drivers (Hardware is an Asus
Pundit-PH1 with ATI Xpress 200 chipset), however, the problem remains.

I urgently need to resolve this problem as we have to start shipping
devices, preferably with XP Embedded, so any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Roger Davies

[Sean Liming (eMVP)]

Jsut to be clear, you updated all the drivers for the system? Including the
video camera driver?

Have you tested the same setup under XP Pro SP2?

Regards,

Sean Liming
www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
Toolkit

"Roger Davies" <Roger...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D0B88B40-D8EA-4003...@microsoft.com...

> Hi,
>
> We developed an application in C# (.NET 1.1) running on Win XP Pro SP2.
> The
> application captures an image from a firewire camera and processes it
> using
> third-party software that is in the form of a COM component. The
> application
> is required to do this capture and processing loop about 200 times.
>
> Recently, we created a configuration of Windows XP Embedded SP2 and tried
> the application on that. The hardware is exactly the same, but after a
> random

> number of cycles (anything from 1 to 120) Windows freezes - no mouse, no

[Roger Davies]

All drivers are updated and yes, we have run under XP Pro 2 on same hardware.
Since my initial post I have discovered a workaround; if I disable the Intel
SpeedStep option in the system BIOS the XPe system does not freeze. The XP
Pro SP2 equivalent never freezes, even when this setting is enabled.

BTW: The freeze occurs when the application (.NET 1.1) uses a 3rd-party COM
component that performs some CPU and memory intensive image processing
operations.